


The Human Touch 2

by TheFierceBeast



Series: The Human Touch [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addict Crowley, Awkwardness, Crowley and Feelings, Crowley let me love you, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Flirting, Fried Chicken, Gas-N-Sip, Human Castiel, Innuendo, M/M, Nearly Human Crowley, crowstiel, longing looks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4916236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Probably helpful but not necessary to read the first part first. Canon divergence – a blood-addicted, human-adjacent!Crowley escapes from the bunker and finds human!Castiel when he’s still working at the Gas n Sip. </p><p>There’ll be one more part after this bit, which is sort of the marshmallow-fluff filling to some porn bread, if you like your marshmallow fluff laced with angst, lacerations and intravenous drugs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Human Touch 2

“You couldn't phone?” Crowley says. He wrinkles his nose. Back in this stuffy backroom so soon, and the memory of what happened last time, of how quickly he skipped out afterwards, all too vivid in his mind. He can practically still smell the –  _blood_ ?

“I don't have your number,” Cas mutters. Crowley looks around for the source of the scent, spots it, his mouth going suddenly dry.  
“I didn't think you'd have the nowse for a demon call, now you’re a Real Boy and all. Whose blood did you use?” He pauses, the back of his neck rushing suddenly cold. “Oh.”  
“I had nobody else to call.” Castiel sounds less resentful now than pleading. His dripping hand is cradled in the other, jewel-dark blood welling between his fingers despite the towel wrapped clumsily around them, and a seismic jolt rips through Crowley’s conscious: panic, lust, craving. He swallows, hard, prickles of sweat springing immediately on his palms.  
“You hurt yourself.”  
“I didn't do it to _myself_.” That familiar exasperated tone.  
“Who did it? I'll dismantle them.” His vigour surprises them both. “My toys, my rules,” he mutters, but he knows neither of them are convinced. This is _horrible_.  
Castiel avoids his eyes. “Nobody did it. It was just an accident.”  
“You didn't go to a hospital.”  
“Crowley, I can't even afford a room.”  
Crowley grunts. The sudden urge to set this liability up with a penthouse and an allowance insinuates itself into his consciousness like a snake. Castiel looks back up at him, all wide wounded eyes and Crowley shakes his head.  
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”  
“You have beyond average experience in flesh wounds. Does this look normal?”  
“Well don't - wave it in my face!” Crowley sighs, irritably. When he reaches to grasp the man’s injured hand it’s all he can do not to bring it straight to his lips. “Let me see. Cassie, Cassie, it's barely a scratch.” It’s not really, it’s more than a scratch. The flesh of his palm is parted neatly, deep and seeping, a wound from a shallow blade. Crowley’s eyes follow a trail of blood spots across the floor to a stack of opened boxes, a discarded box cutter. An accident. Just that.  
Castiel winces. “I can't tell. It hurts, and pain is pain. I'm still not used to all this... damage. It’s different now. It all feels different.”  
“It does, that.” Crowley looks at him. Feels the vital shimmer of Castiel’s pulse beneath his fingers. “Ugh. You're so... _fragile_.” The corners of his mouth turn down in fascinated distaste.  
“I know.” He sounds almost apologetic. The grip of Crowley’s hand around his wrist tightens, only a little, but it makes him draw in a sharp breath. He really is. Fragile. Crowley could break him so easily now. Pull him apart on a whim. Spread his insides out across this grubby little room. Do _whatever_ he wanted…. He turns Castiel’s hand over in his hands, brushes a thumb across the skin on his knuckles. Scars healing. Those blue eyes are watching him, not narrowed in suspicion, but heavy lidded as if he’s tired.  
“You're ludicrous,” Crowley tells him. “You’re pathetic. Tragic. I despise you.”  
“I know,” Castiel says. His voice sounds dreamy as a sleep-talker. He leans in, only a little and Crowley realises that he’s leaning closer, too, his eyes not on the blood but on Castiel’s mouth. He clears his throat.  
“Is there a first aid kit in this dump?”  
Spell broken. Castiel averts his eyes, drawing back. “I don't know. I didn't think.” He gives a wan little smile. “I panicked.”  
“And called me.” It’s meant to sound annoyed, but it comes out tinged with pride. “Bloody time waster,” Crowley adds, to cover himself.  
“My intention isn't to waste your time. I will...” Castiel looks as if he’s trying the concept on for size, in his newfound humanity, “owe you.”  
Oh, dangerous. “Your mouth’s writing cheques your arse can't cash, sweetheart.”  
“What does my ass have to do with this?”  
He’s serious, of course he is. His expression is still neutral, almost unreadable, but mortality has affected him enough that Crowley can detect the slightest nuances of emotion in there – confusion, apprehension, dear lord does he look _hopeful_? – and he stares back with utter incredulity. “It - it's just an expression. You need to brush up on your colloquialisms, pet, nobody ever tell you that? Especially now you’re a full time monkey.”  
“Maybe you can teach me.”  
_We’re still talking about social intercourse, right?_ Crowley takes a deep breath. “Maybe I have better things to do. Anyway. Last time I was here...” Castiel raises his chin just a little. Nothing more. “Not exactly the payback I had in mind, but consider us square now.” And Crowley stands to leave.  
“Your hands are shaking,” Castiel says, matter of factly. It catches Crowley completely off guard.  
“No they're not.”  
“Crowley, what happened to you?”  
“Nothing happened to me.” That anger in his voice, it’s really just panic. Nobody can get under his bloody skin like this, nobody!  
Castiel pushes on. “You are different. The demon trials…”  
“You mean Abbott and Costello didn't tell you?”  
“Dean and Sam didn’t tell me what?” He’s doing that quizzical gesture again: Crowley sees it in his damn sleep; he never used to dream, never used to _sleep_ , but these past months, every time he closes his eyes there’re those parted lips, tilting head, candid eyes, until he just wants to _grab_ and _pin_ and _hold_ …  
“It was nothing.”  
“I can help you.” Oh, gods, he seriously thinks he can. Crowley suddenly wants to laugh.  
“Trust me, you do not want to help me.” The dingbat is still staring at him. Crowley licks his parched lips. “You didn’t just call me here to kiss your boo-boo better, did you?” Castiel shakes his head. Crowley sighs. _Does he know? He might as well know_. His eyes stray again to the polystyrene tray of blood that’s congealing on the table. “Are you gonna use that..? I mean, if you're just going to throw it away...”  
Still no narrowed eyes. Just bland curiosity. They evidently know each other too well. “Why do you want my blood?”  
“I – never mind.”  
“Crowley, tell me.”  
Crowley rubs both palms over his face. He’s really worn this vessel in over the past few months, like the kind of shoes you no longer feel like you’re wearing, that have become a part of you. He can feel every sodding ache and twitch of every single inch of it. “Don't blame me, OK,” he says, wearily, “It was your precious boys who brought me to this.”  
“The trials. They cured you.” He actually has the temerity to sound awed. “That's why you're human.”  
“I am _not_ human!”  
“Perhaps.” Castiel’s voice softens. “But you feel it, don't you.”  
“Listen... Have you eaten?”  
Castiel blinks at him. “You are not adept at changing a subject.”  
“Shut up.” Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose. “Answer the question.”  
“Not since breakfast.”  
“I'm buying.” His gruff tone brooks no argument. “My treat. Takeout though, I'm not being seen in public with a…” his eyes slide over Castiel’s human form, all scruffy blue jeans and bloody hand.  
Castiel smiles, gently. “Gas n sip employee?” Crowley grunts. “Southern-fried chicken,” says Castiel. Just as Crowley disappears, he hears, shouted, “-with slaw.”

 

“You’re an animal,” Crowley says, later.  
Cas glances up at him with a tiny silent smile. “Do you want some?” He offers up the mostly-gone bucket of chicken that he’s in the process of inhaling. And Crowley suddenly really, really does want some, but he pulls a disgusted face instead, shaking his head.  
“How's your hand.”  
“Better. Thank you.” Castiel looks up at him. “How is your jonesing?”  
Crowley almost chokes on a splutter. “Don't mince your words, do you, Shaft?”  
“You can have it.” Castiel says, without looking up. “The blood. I do not mind. Just - here. So I know what you're doing with it.” He drops a final chicken bone in the bucket and pushes it away, wiping his now-bandaged fingers on a napkin.  
More out of habit than anything, Crowley says, “I can just take what I want, you know.”  
“I know.” Mild, unconcerned. Crowley raises an eyebrow, but his hands in his pockets are slick with perspiration.

“And I don’t. Yet you still don’t trust me.”  
A shrug. Crowley sighs. He doesn’t know why he wants the angel to trust him anyway.

It’s awkward as sin shooting up in front of him. And Crowley doesn’t know why, because illicit highs and debauchery are practically de rigeur in Hell, except maybe it’s that this feels like weakness. Maybe this _is_ weakness, this thing that was forced on him and has made him its - oft willing - slave. He could stop, should stop, but… he’s not sure he wants to.  
Castiel watches him, closely, in the way that he watches all things. Crowley can practically feel his gaze like a touch. He removes his coat, folds it across the back of the chair opposite where Cas is sitting. Removes his jacket – sees that flicker in Cas’s eyes – lays it on top of his coat. Pops through one cufflink and rolls up his shirt sleeve. He feels strangely naked without his jacket and that’s ridiculous too: he’s not screwed his fill of gorgeous girls and boys for nearly four centuries only to come over all Victorian at the first glance of a grace-less angel. “Maybe you should sit down.” Castiel’s voice is soft with concern. “The men I spent time with on the streets always sat down when they injected their narcotics,” he explains, and Crowley winces at the lack of cushioning euphemism. Then he pulls out the chair and sits.  
The blood is not in the state Crowley usually favours. It’s been sitting for an hour or more, open to the air, and it’s starting to coagulate. He’s only had fresh from the tap before now, or sealed transfusion packets at a push, but this is _Castiel’s_ blood – not angelic, sure, but not quite human either. The thought of it shudders through his core, a delicious tightening shiver from the top of his head down to his crotch, something that only adds to his shame. But it’s not _just_ shame, not entirely. Because then why would he feel so… _content_? He glances up, catches Cas’s eye. No – no matter how mortal and mundane he is now, he can never be just a human. Their gazes are still locked when Crowley slides the needle beneath his skin, depresses the plunger.  
It’s the same, but it’s not. Nothing celestial – nothing scouring holy napalm through his veins – but something more than human. The feeling spreads, immediately, predictably. Washes over him in a roll rather than a crash – he remembers their last encounter and a smile tugs his lips – he’s been inside Cas and now Cas is inside him. It tastes sweet to smile like this, unselfconscious and safe. He leans his head back, muscles loosening, troubles fleeing. His insides feel bathed with soft blue light – bollocks, what a thing to think! – he chuckles, gently. This _is_ different. Bigger. More. Better. He feels full. Clean. Washed from the inside out, healed and… _complete_. “Well,” he tries to say, tries to sound sardonic, but he’s not sure if he’s actually speaking or if it’s just in his head, “that’s drugs for you.” And he’s pretty much, almost certainly, ninety nine percent sure that from across the table a hand reaches out and takes his hand, holding it firmly.

It seems that awkward goodbyes are becoming a habit with them and it’s not one that Crowley likes. Sure, he feels a whole lot less lousy than he usually does after he’s sobered up, sure he even feels a little perked up – lighter and less achey. But the fact remains that he’s exposed his metaphorical soft white underbelly to the walking hazard who’s now tidying away takeout containers across the room from him and the thought makes his skin crawl in unusual ways. While he was out of it, his tie had been loosened, his top button undone, and perhaps he did that himself, but… when he awakened, there was a glass of water on the table in front of him, and all the evidence of his addiction had been cleared neatly away. Now, “Are you OK?” Castiel asks him. Crowley grunts. Nods. Considers just snapping away again. Cas says, “Thank you for lunch. And for-” he holds up his bandaged hand.

Crowley says, “Thank you for the, ah,” _Oh, Mother of All, but his eyes are so damned_ \- “medication.” Castiel nods, tautly. Crowley lifts his suit jacket off the back of the chair and shrugs back into it. After a moment’s pause, he takes something from his inside pocket and holds it out to Castiel. “My number. For in future. You know. Just in case.” Castiel nods again, less stiffly. He puts the business card into the pocket of his jeans.  


**Author's Note:**

> I just don't know what to do with them. They're so lost and mournful and adorable when they're human - I just want them to be lost and mournful and adorable together!  
> This additional bit because I'd love to know what Crowley would make of ex-angel blood (or even full angel blood..? Another time.)  
> Last bit of this will be up soon because I apparently can't stop writing them, and last bit will break the UST.


End file.
